5.  The applicant was born in 1984 and lives in Rijeka.
6.  On 29 December 2005 the Rijeka Municipal State Attorney’s Office (Općinsko državno odvjetništvo u Rijeci, hereinafter “the State Attorney’s Office”) indicted the applicant and one other person, F.M., in the Rijeka Municipal Court (Općinski sud u Rijeci) on charges of drug possession.
7.  The charges were based on a police report alleging that on 1 November 2005 at about 11.30 p.m. the applicant had been in possession of 1.2 grams of marijuana wrapped in a sheet of newspaper, which he had thrown into a rubbish bin when he saw three policemen approaching him.
8.  On 23 February 2006 the Rijeka Municipal Court issued a penal order (kazneni nalog) finding the applicant guilty of the offence of drug possession and ordering him to pay a fine of 1,458 Croatian kunas (HRK).
9.  The applicant objected to the penal order on 13 March 2006, asking the Rijeka Municipal Court to hold a hearing. He also requested the court to commission a DNA or fingerprint forensic analysis of the newspaper sheet in order to obtain evidence as to whether he had been in contact with that object.
10.  The Rijeka Municipal Court held a hearing on 29 May 2006. At the hearing the applicant denied the charges and argued that what he had thrown into the rubbish bin was a beer can and not the package of marijuana which was later found there. He had, therefore, refused to sign the seizure record of the package and had requested a DNA or fingerprint forensic analysis of the package.
11.  After the questioning of the applicant, the Deputy State Attorney requested the trial court to call three police officers, J.M., A.B. and S.J.-V., who had been present at the scene, to give evidence. F.M.’s defence lawyer asked the trial court to call three other persons, I.Š., U.V. and T.M., who had also been present at the scene, to give evidence. The applicant and his defence lawyer agreed with the submissions of the Deputy State Attorney and F.M.’s defence lawyer, and made no submissions of their own.
12.  At the same hearing, the Rijeka Municipal Court granted the parties’ requests and decided to hear the three police officers and two other witnesses, I.Š. and U.V.
13.  Another hearing was held on 4 December 2006, at which the applicant again denied all the charges against him. The three police officers appeared at the hearing, but the other two witnesses did not, because U.V. was studying abroad and I.Š. was serving in the army.
14.  At the hearing, police officer A.B. testified that during a regular patrol in the area they had seen a group of young people hanging about. When they had approached them he had seen the applicant making a move as if he was about to tie his shoelace and at that moment throwing a package into a rubbish bin. They had found the package in the bin and saw that it contained a green herbal substance.
15.  Police officer J.M. also testified that he had seen the applicant throwing a package into the rubbish bin while he was making a move as if he was about to tie his shoelace. However, J.M. had then examined the bin and found the package in it. There were also some beer cans in the bin, but the package was on top of the content of the bin. He excluded any possibility that the applicant had thrown a beer can into the bin, because he had seen the applicant throwing the package.
16.  Police officer S.J.-V. testified to the same effect as the other police officers. He confirmed that he had seen the applicant throwing a piece of newspaper into the rubbish bin, which one of his colleagues had then found in the bin.
17.  After the police officers had been questioned, the Deputy State Attorney made no further request for the taking of evidence, while the defence insisted on witnesses I.Š., U.V. and J.M. being questioned. The trial court dismissed the request for those witnesses to be heard and concluded the hearing, finding that all relevant facts had been sufficiently established.
18.  On the same day, the Rijeka Municipal Court found the applicant guilty and sentenced him to a suspended sentence of three months’ imprisonment with one year’s probation. The Rijeka Municipal Court relied on the witness statements of the police officers, seizure records and a forensic expert report confirming that the green substance was marijuana. In connection with the refusal to take further evidence, that court noted:
“This court dismissed the defence’s request for witnesses I.Š., U.V. and J.M. to be questioned, since it considered that all the relevant facts had been sufficiently established and that therefore questioning of these witnesses would be redundant. The request of the second accused, Zlatko Topić, for a fingerprint analysis of the package, was also dismissed since, given all the established facts, taking of that evidence would also be redundant.”
19.  On 27 December 2006 the applicant lodged an appeal against the first-instance judgment of the Rijeka Municipal Court, arguing that without witnesses I.Š., U.V. and J.M. being questioned and a fingerprint forensic analysis it was impossible to draw any conclusions on the allegation that the applicant had thrown the package containing drugs into the rubbish bin.
20.  In the meantime, the minor-offences proceedings instituted against the applicant before the Rijeka Minor Offences Court (Prekršajni sud u Rijeci) concerning the same event were stayed on 29 August 2006 pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings, and then on 21 December 2007 discontinued as time-barred.
21.  On 9 April 2009 the Bjelovar County Court (Županijski sud u Bjelovaru), as the court of appeal, having analysed the applicant’s defence and all the evidence from the case file, dismissed the applicant’s appeal and upheld the first-instance judgment of the Rijeka Municipal Court. The relevant part of the judgment reads:
“... The first-instance court correctly dismissed the request of the defence to take further evidence by questioning persons who had been in the accused’s company and for a fingerprint analysis of the package to be commissioned. The questioning of the witnesses was an irrelevant request within the meaning of Article 322 § 4(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and the fingerprint analysis was inapplicable, within the meaning of Article 322 § 4(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, given that traces of fingerprints had never been retrieved from the package.”
22.  On 9 October 2009 the applicant lodged a constitutional complaint before the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske), reiterating his arguments that his defence rights had been violated by the refusal of the trial court to hear witnesses for the defence.
23.  On 13 January 2010 the Constitutional Court declared the applicant’s constitutional complaint inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded. The decision was served on the applicant’s representative on 12 February 2010.